In The News

Adventure Journal: American GIs Revealing Sensitive Military Locations on Strava

Steve Casimiro January 30, 2018
Strava is a social media site that aims to connect and motivate athletes around the globe: “Strava works with your mobile home or favorite GPS device to track your activities and share your efforts with friends.” An Australian student studying Middle East security, Nathan Ruser, studied Strava’s map and soon “discovered pockets of activity in Iraq and Syria. Unlike in the U.S., where the terrain...

CNET: Details on Big Chip Flaws Spectre and Meltdown

Laura Hautala January 4, 2018
Silicon processing chips are reported to have security flaws known as Spectre and Meltdown that could expose computer to hacking attacks. Skilled hackers could view passwords, encryption keys and other secret data on those chips. “To make computer processes run faster, a chip will essentially guess what information the computer needs to perform its next function,” explains Laura Hautala for CNET...

Wired: Big Brother Meets Big Data as China Rates Citizens

Rachel Botsman January 3, 2018
Trust is in the eye the beholder, and the friend who speaks the truth is better than the one who tells others what they want to hear. China is developing a Social Credit System to evaluate citizens and assign trust scores, explains Rachel Botsam. An excerpt from her book was published by Wired. Of course, the system has many critics who compare the system to George Orwell’s novel 1984. “For now,...

Politico: How Facebook Changed the Spy Game

Asha Rangappa December 19, 2017
Law enforcement agencies strive to thwart propaganda and disinformation campaigns, but social media has opened up a new frontier in shaping public opinion. Facebook reported deleting hundreds of accounts based in Russia and paid to promote polarizing material during the 2016 US presidential campaign. “The rise of social media platforms makes the pervasiveness and impact of these operations today...

CSM: Tech Companies Caught Between US, EU Ideals

Amanda Paulson June 28, 2017
A recent cluster of terrorist attacks has prompted French and British politicians to introduce regulation imposing financial penalties on internet firms that do not sufficiently curtail the flow of extremist propaganda. As a result, YouTube, its parent company Google, and Facebook announced their own plans to preempt these laws that could negatively affect their financial bottom line as well as...

The Atlantic: The Terrible Cost of Trump's Disclosures

Eliot A. Cohen May 16, 2017
The Washington Post reports that the US president shared highly classified information about the Islamic State to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador. White House staff denied the story, possibly leaked by White House or intelligence staff. Donald Trump then confirmed that he shared “facts” for “humanitarian reasons.” Eliot Cohen describes the consequences for the Atlantic. Release of...

Scout: The Rise of the Weaponized AI Propaganda Machine

Berit Anderson and Brett Horvath April 5, 2017
Stories are always at risk for manipulation, but technology can now analyze and recruit individuals to unwittingly promote specific, even false, ideas. Berit Anderson and Brett Horvath, writing for Scout, argue the challenge is larger than fake news. Big data analysis, surveillance, AI, programmed bots, Facebook posts, sophisticated behavior assessments, computational psychology and fake news...